THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 338, 14 December 1945, Page 4

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

MONDAY LLONA PRIESTLEY whose talks "Occupation, Housewife" are being heard from 2YA on Mondays (the'second at 11.0 a.m. on December 17) has hit on a rather novel plan for describing, in seven instalments, domestic and social life from Roman times to early days in New Zealand. She started this week with "The New House in Rome" and as she proceeds, she will trace the lives of the descendants of two Roman housewives who went to Britain. The second talk is called "The Anglo-Saxon Feast," the third "Christmas in the Fourteenth Century," the fourth "The Elizabethan Wedding," and so on until, in the seventh, the descendants emigrate to New Zealand. Also worth notice: 3YA, 9.25 p.m.: Piano Quartet (Fauré). 4YA, 8.0 p.m.: Music by Dvorak.

| TUESDAY ‘THE habit of dividing southerners into Old Identities (pre-1850) and New Iniquities (post-1850) was outmoded long ago; the current habit is to classify those of the earlier period as the Uncanny Scots (those with second sight) and those of the later period as the Canny Scots (those with second thoughts), indicating thus that both classifications did quite nicely out of their sea-change. Scots or English or Irish, however, they were all pioneers, almost as much so in the ’sixties as in the ’forties, and it is about their adventures and excitements and trials that Rosaline Redwood talks in her series on Early Southland now being heard from 3YA on Tuesdays at 11 am. "From England to New Zealand in the ’Sixties" is the title of the talk on December 18. Also worth notice: 2YA, 8.13 p.m.: Violin Concerto (Bartok). 3YL, 8.0 p.m.: Concert by Dulcet Choralists. WEDNESDAY QUANTITY of salt has found its way into the sea since Lot’s wife was abruptly crystallised for glancing back, and though to-day we are still urged on every hand’ to be forward-looking, we can, without fear, pause occasionally and look back along the way we have .come. Nor is the experiment without profit. To that extent at least, the series of retrospects which the Rev. Robert Thornley has been giving under the title of "European Journey, 1938" (the sixth talk is to be broadcast by 4YZ on December 19 at 7.30 p.m.) leaves us in his debt. To-day 1938 seems as remote in time as the book of Genesis and the Europe through which Mr. Thornley journeyed has been razed by lightnings as terrible as those which smote Sodom. But if another day of reckoning is to be avoided pre-war Europe must have more than an antiquarian interest for us. Also worth notice: 1YA, 8.21 p.m: A Ceremony of Carols (Britten). 3YA, 9.30 p.m.: Scheherezade (RimskyKorsakov) THURSDAY AST week’s "Appointment with Fear" at 3YA (at 8.30 p.m. on Thursday) was called "The Clock Strikes Eight," and next week’s (at the same time on Thursday, December 20) is also about a clock. Its title is "The Speaking Clock," and the BBC, showing some reluctance to give away too much for fear

of spoiling the fun for whodunit fans, tells us only this much-that the crucial point of the story turns upon an old Grandfather clock. It is told, like the others in this series, by "The Man in Black," and the writer is the American thriller-writer now living in England, John Dickson Carr. Also worth notice: 2YA, 9.37 p.m.: "Enigma Variations" (Elgar) 4YA, 9.25 p.m.: Symphony No. 1 FRIDAY ROM time to time someone in the world of letters deplores the current decay in the art of- conversation or of letter-writing. Generally speaking it is someone who considers himself more than somewhat as an_ after-dinner speaker or a hot scone at correspondence

and on that basis we propose to deplore the lost art of eating. Not that we could compare with Nicely-nicely Jones, but we’d rather mortify the digestion than the flesh any day and at the moment we are wondering (as we do every year about this time) why we can’t feed all the year round as interestingly as we do at Christmas time. So when Prof. T. D. Adams gives his readings on "Feasts and Feasters" from 4YA on December 21 at 9.33 p.m. we’re going to note the dates of his feast-days. Also worth notice: 2YA, 9.15 p.m.: Band of H.M. Irish Guard 3YA, 8.26 p.m.: Concerto in D Min (Schumann). SATURDAY SOME years before the war, a Japanese Viscount went to Europe, and there distinguished himself by showing that he had so absorbed western musical culture that he could conduct Haydn symphonies and suchlike things to the satis faction of some quite exacting western critics. His name was Hidemaro Konoye, He is a brother of Prince Konoye, whose name has in the meantime become familiar all over the world for reasons not so well connected with the arts of peace. When Viscount Hidemaro was in Berlin, he conducted a recording of Haydn’s Symphony No. 91 in E Flat, which the NBS has, and it has been broadcast here before. The symphony will be heard from 2YC at 8.0 p.m. on Saturday, December 22. Also worth notice: 1YX, 9.0 p.m.: Fauré’s Requiem. 3YL, 9.0 p.m.: Music by Purcell. SUNDAY T 8.0 p.m. on Sunday, December 23, Station 2YD will present the first of two programmes about Pepys and his diary, in the session "Hall of Fame." The two programmes are called "And So to Music," and they consist of extracts from Mr. Pepys’s diary relating to music, spoken by a narrator and linked by the announcer (together with snatches of the kind of music Mr. Pepys might have heard in London): "I went to hear Mrs. Turner’s daughter play on the harpsichord. But Lord! it was enough to make any man sick to hear her," or "It being a pleasant morning I played my flageolet in the Park." Pepys did not always mention the name of the music that delighted or annoyed him. But 2YD has used its imagination and arranged twa bright programmes. Also worth notice: 1YA, 3.30 p.m.: Symphony No. 4 (Mahler), 4YA, 2.30 p.m.: Symphony No. 3 (Gliére),